THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 29, 2018
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were shooting by the east wall, which
was pocked in a way that was pleasing
to a director of photography. A white
guard watched from a tower. At one
point, he called down, "Can I get in
on the fight?" Carter had a towel over
his head and a plastic co ee mug in
hand. Dozens of o enders milled
around in T-shirts and shorts---extras.
Some played handball, others kibbitzed
at a picnic table, a few jumped rope.
Staiger, the assistant director, said,
"These guys are the best background
I've ever had. Their continuity aware-
ness is really great."
Every day was a race. There was
something perverse about being so
squeezed for time in a place where no
one had anything but. This morning,
the opponent was the sun; the shot was
in the wall's shadow, which would be
gone by eleven. The heat was already
grave. Sample, tank-framed and moti-
vationally upbeat, quickly choreo-
graphed a scu e only vaguely delin-
eated in the script. He pantomimed
overhand right, left hook, defensive
block, choke, rear naked choke hold
into the wall. "The reaction sells the
violence," he told Carter and Wright.
"It's cool trying to unlearn how to
beat someone up," Carter said. "I've
had to unlearn some shit I might do
inarealfighttodoafightinamovie."
He said to Wright, "Don't sucker
out, now. Put on the pads and let's do
this." He and Carter fake-fought along
the wall, over and over. Between takes,
Wright had to change his sweatshirt,
owing to grass stains. After the fifth
take, Sample did a little dance. "I love
it when it comes together," he said.
Makeup got to work on Wright, who
had a raspberry on the back of his head.
Carter said, "Make sure you tell them
I don't do makeup. I don't even wipe
the sweat o me."
By the pull-up bars on the far side
of the gym, Sackler and Held tried to
block out a few shots of Louis attack-
ing the white supremacist played by
Markus Murray. It was time for "fuck-
ing coon." Wright explained that he
wanted to hit Murray so hard that he'd
go slack. Carter said, "You hit a moth-
erfucker and they just freeze up. Their
whole body locks up." (None of this,
in the end, would wind up in the film.)
An order came down from the tower
to halt filming, while o enders in a
nearby cell block, who'd been on lock-
down for days, were released into the
yard. "They just got out of restriction,
so if we're filming they'll act like ding-
dongs," a prison o cial said. Crew and
extras milled around the idled set. Car-
ter entertained them by performing, at
a sprint, four back handsprings and a
backflip. Thunderheads massed, and
the yard darkened. When shooting re-
sumed---Wright kneeling over Mur-
ray, delivering phantom elbows to his
head, over and over---a cooling wind
blew in, followed soon by a heavy down-
pour, and lightning. The crew scurried
to protect their gear. Mo Rains, with
the approval of the tower, unlocked a
back gate to the rec gym, and cast and
crew dashed inside. She conducted a
count, o enders dripping in the mid-
dle of the basketball court, and then a
kind of snow-day tumult broke out:
wet-floor-wipeout hoops, fake-fighting
tutorials, general horsing around. At
the weight station, Durham and some
others goaded Wright into bench-
pressing two hundred pounds. Some-
one wheeled in a trolley of individual
pizzas---guacamole dreams deferred---
and the inmates closed in.
Carter stood to the side, disdainful
of uncontrollable appetites. "I won't
come here no more," he said. "Every-
one tough, everyone argue." He watched
a crew member swat at a fly. "I wouldn't
"A lot of these guys never had a chance," Je rey Wright said, of the prisoners.